Our Galactic Neighborhood The words solar system refer to the sun and all of the objects that travel around it - planets, natural satellites such as the moon, the asteroid belt, comets and meteoroids. Our solar system is part of a spiral galaxy known as the Milky Way. The sun, the center of our solar system, holds eight planets and countless smaller objects in its orbit.

NASA Spacecraft Maps the Solar System's Tail
Like a comet, the solar system has a tail. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has for the first time mapped out the structure of this tail, which is shaped like a four-leaf clover.

Probing the Dark Sector with Euclid
Dr. Jason Rhodes explains in this lecture the basics of weak lensing and outline some key weak lensing results. He also discusses the European Space Agency's Euclid mission.

State of the Solar System
As the president prepares to give his annual State of the Union Address, we offer our own update from the ongoing exploration of our cosmic neighborhood.

Basics of the Analysis Procedure
The instruments employed at UCLA, UCSD, and Open University differ in many respects, but each has a method to free the solar oxygen atoms from the collection material, and each uses a mass spectrometer to separate and count the isotopes.

The Long, Slow Clean-Up
The Genesis mission brought important new evidence to scientists working to understand how the solar system formed, but it also brought an unprecedented challenge.

One Step Closer to Earth's Genesis
Kevin McKeegan's announcement at the 2008 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference that the pattern of oxygen isotopes on the Sun differs greatly from that of Earth took many planetary scientists by surprise.

The Sun Under Lock and Key
Where do you think you would find the world's most valuable collection? You can make an awfully good argument for the Astromaterials Curation Labs at Johnson Space Center. That is where NASA keeps the Genesis solar wind samples, and much more.

The Big Question -- The Reason for the Genesis Mission
Where did the world come from? An immense gas cloud, peppered with atoms made by stars, squeezed itself together so tightly that its center ignited into a nuclear furnace and became our sun. The remaining bits and pieces of the cloud, known as ...

NASA Spacecraft Maps the Solar System's Tail
Like a comet, the solar system has a tail. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has for the first time mapped out the structure of this tail, which is shaped like a four-leaf clover.

Probing the Dark Sector with Euclid
Dr. Jason Rhodes explains in this lecture the basics of weak lensing and outline some key weak lensing results. He also discusses the European Space Agency's Euclid mission.

State of the Solar System
As the president prepares to give his annual State of the Union Address, we offer our own update from the ongoing exploration of our cosmic neighborhood.

Basics of the Analysis Procedure
The instruments employed at UCLA, UCSD, and Open University differ in many respects, but each has a method to free the solar oxygen atoms from the collection material, and each uses a mass spectrometer to separate and count the isotopes.

The Long, Slow Clean-Up
The Genesis mission brought important new evidence to scientists working to understand how the solar system formed, but it also brought an unprecedented challenge.

One Step Closer to Earth's Genesis
Kevin McKeegan's announcement at the 2008 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference that the pattern of oxygen isotopes on the Sun differs greatly from that of Earth took many planetary scientists by surprise.

The Sun Under Lock and Key
Where do you think you would find the world's most valuable collection? You can make an awfully good argument for the Astromaterials Curation Labs at Johnson Space Center. That is where NASA keeps the Genesis solar wind samples, and much more.

The Big Question -- The Reason for the Genesis Mission
Where did the world come from? An immense gas cloud, peppered with atoms made by stars, squeezed itself together so tightly that its center ignited into a nuclear furnace and became our sun. The remaining bits and pieces of the cloud, known as ...